CrossTown, 9/4: Here Come the Neuqua Valley Wildcats!

Sept. 4 — Whoa, that’s a lot of runners! Looking through roster of the Neuqua Valley boys cross country team roster is impressive to say the least. The Wildcats enter the season with a roster of 145, the most in school history.

Personally, it reminds me of my freshman year at Hinsdale Central when York High School brought three busloads of runners to our dual meet at Katherine Legge Memorial Park. We might have had 35 guys in our whole program, and they put close to 100 on the starting line of the freshman race.

Speaking of Katherine Legge park in Hinsdale (otherwise known as KLM), that’s where Neuqua Valley opens its 2009 season on Saturday. The Hornet-Red Devil Invitational should provide a good first test as the 3-mile race is run on one of the hillier courses in Chicago’s western suburbs. (Look for results here.)

“I’m really looking forward to what they do on Saturday,” Neuqua Valley head coach Paul Vandersteen says. “We’re a little more team oriented this year, and we don’t have a lot of ‘who’s going to beat out who’ in our focus. But training is one thing, and racing is another. We’ll see if it transfers or not.”

Who’s in the top seven? Who knows? Vandersteen honestly does not. The team is loaded with talent and depth, so the best way to figure out who’s running well this early in the season is to stand at the finish chute and watch ‘em come in.

He knows top gun Aaron Beattie (13th at the state meet in 2007, 30th last year) will be among the leaders, while returning veteran Luke Verbus (56th at state last year) should also be near the front. Based on summer training and recent workouts, both appear to be in tip-top form.

But after that, the rest of the top seven are up for grabs among seniors Jordan Lagomarcino, David Wing, Jaffar Mahmoud, Carlton Folster, Alex Merkley, Luke Verbus, Billy Klimczak, James Krist, Alex Kotsovos, Rob Covington or juniors Hirsh Gaikwad, Andrew Tout, Josh Antonson, Vincenzo Dal Pozzo, Joel Lynn, Matt Hill, Josh Ferguson, Jon Stricker and Matt Coyne, among others. And then there are standout sophomores Taylor Soltys and Mark Derrick, who will be running in the separate 3-mile sophomore race.

Having 145 guys in the program can cause logistical challenges at times, but it’s a good problem to have.

“Every kid counts,” says Vandersteen, who gives big credit to assistant coaches Jamie Janota and Steve Saul, plus volunteer coaches Mike Rossi and Arnoush Javaherian. “We treat each guy with admiration and respect no matter how fast they are. And that mentality runs through our program. We try to give examples of the guys who are running well who might not be in our top top 12.”

The Wildcats won state in 2007 but slipped to fourth last year. Now there’s an hunger to get back on top and it appears they have plenty of the components needed to make that happen. But there is a lot of work yet to be done and many important races before the Nov. 7 state meet in Peoria.

The team was disappointed to lose likely No. 3 runner Harsha Torke, whose family moved to Florida over the summer. But that just spells more opportunity for everyone else.

“We have another pretty big hole open,” Beattie says. “That should be a lot of motivation for other guys to move up. If we have two or three guys move up, we’ll definitely be in the running for a trophy. If we can win state, that will take something special. For the next few months, I guess we’ll see if we’re special enough.”

Heading into the season, the team, and especially the front pack, appears to be super-fit. At the team’s recent 10-mile run-a-thon on the track, Beattie ran 55:30, the lead pack came through at 58:00 (including the last mile in 5:20) and 13 guys ran under 60:00.

They’ve just recently started sprinkling in some interval training, with hill repeat sessions at nearby Blackwell Forest Preserve and a recent 5 x 1200m track workout (in which a pack of nine guys ran in 3:45 or faster).

For now, after a long summer of training that included peak weeks of 80 to 85 miles for seniors and about 75 miles for juniors, the team is ready to race. The summer also included a four-day retreat to Oregon, Ill., where the team ran on trails, did hill repeats and built team chemistry. (For more summer workout details, go here.)

One thing Vandersteen and his staff decided to change this year is to have the team do its long runs on Monday instead of having kids do it mostly on their own on Sundays. Some of those recent runs have ranged from 80-94 minutes (or 11 to 13 miles) and included a second-half surge or negative-split pick-up.

“If that run is so important, we better make sure we’re around when that run gets done,” “If it’s a day we need more recovery, we’ll treat it as much. But if it’s coming off a race weekend and give them Sunday as a recovery day, we think we can come back on Monday with that long run and a pick-up at the end.”

The only other timed competitive effort the team has done since the end of track season was a 5K on the track in the program’s annual twilight track meet in mid-July. Most ran at tempo pace, but they still turned in some good efforts. Beattie ran 16:10, while a pack of seven runners finished between 16:30 and 16:45.

“It can be a good year or a great year for us,” Verbus said after a summer workout. “It’s kind of up to us how good we’re going to be.”

Pick up a copy of the October 2009 issue of Running Times for stories and photos of CrossTown and check back here often for more updates.

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